She should have been dead.
But here she was.
Althea's heart hammered against her ribs like a war drum, breath sharp in her throat. Around her, a cathedral of light stretched impossibly high—a vast hall shimmering with a thousand golden threads, weaving the fate of every soul alive.
No mortal had ever entered this place.
Yet she stood at the edge of the Thread Hall, hands trembling, eyes fixed on one silver thread glowing faintly among the endless strands.
Her thread.
A line marked not in gold, but silver—a flaw in the cosmic design.
The gods said destiny was absolute. Inescapable. Written in light and sealed by divine decree.
She was about to prove them wrong.
Every fiber in her screamed to run. To hide. To forget this madness.
But she had waited her whole life for this moment.
To hold the thread that bound her life. To grasp the string that dictated every breath, every step, every heartbreak.
She reached out.
Her fingers brushed the cool shimmer of the thread, and pain flared—sharp as fire, burning deep into her skin.
A voice echoed through the hall—a voice ancient and cold.
"Mortal soul detected. Step away from the Thread of Life."
Althea's breath caught. The air around her thickened as a figure of light materialized—an ethereal guardian formed of pure radiance, eyes like burning stars.
"You are forbidden here. Relinquish the thread, or face judgment."
Her fingers tightened. No.
She had come too far.
From the folds of her sleeve, she drew a slender blade—a relic forged from the stars themselves, humming faintly with power.
"Fate didn't want me. But I choose my own destiny."
Her voice was low, steady.
She sliced through the thread.
The sound was not a cut but a thunderclap—a rupture that shattered silence itself.
Time convulsed.
Threads quivered violently like a storm whipped sea, the golden rivers twisting in chaos.
Far beyond the hall, a god screamed.
Light died.
A divine pulse shattered the heavens, and the ground beneath her feet trembled.
Althea staggered back as the celestial chamber trembled and cracks snaked through the walls.
Her name—her existence—flickered and began to fade.
Eyes wide, she saw her own reflection in the threads above—a flickering shadow, fading into nothing.
But with the end of her thread came a new beginning.
Power surged through her veins—visions of countless lives flashed before her eyes: paths she had never taken, choices never made, deaths narrowly avoided.
Her body marked by a faint glowing sigil—the Mark of Chaos.
She was no longer bound. No longer written.
She was the anomaly.
The impossible.
The girl who stole fate from the gods.
Behind her, the Thread Hall began to collapse.
And from the shadows, a dark figure watched.
Eyes cold, heart calculating.
A hunter sent from the heavens.
The hunt had just begun.
From this moment on—the gods would fall.
The dust and light swirled around her as the Thread Hall crumbled. Stone groaned, cracks spider-webbing through pillars like veins.
Althea's lungs burned, heart pounding louder than the roar of falling debris. But she didn't hesitate. Not now.
She darted through the collapsing chamber, every step echoing her rebellion against a world that demanded she obey.
Behind her, the guardian's roar of fury pierced the chaos.
"Stop her! She unravels the divine order!"
But Althea didn't look back.
Her hands tingled with the raw power of shattered fate, the mark on her wrist pulsing like a heartbeat of its own.
This power was both curse and gift — a wildfire she barely understood, but would learn to wield.
Outside the temple's crumbling entrance, the sky tore open with thunderous light.
The celestial hunter stepped forward from the shadows — tall, cloaked in darkness, eyes sharp as shattered stars.
He was no ordinary god.
He was the blade poised to cut her down.
The moment their gazes locked, the air thickened, charged with silent warnings and unspoken threats.
Althea's breath caught, but defiance burned hotter.
"I'm not your destiny," she whispered, voice steady.
The hunter smiled — cold, dangerous.
"Then why do you run… if you think you can change fate?"
A challenge. A promise.
She didn't answer.
Instead, she vanished into the night, clutching the fractured thread of her own life — a thread no god could reclaim.
But the world was already shifting.
Somewhere deep in the heavens, a throne trembled.
A king's eyes snapped open.
Because when a thread is cut, a god dies.
And when a god dies… the game changes.
Althea didn't stop running. Not when the sky cracked open, splitting light across the horizon like a wound. Not when the ground beneath her feet shook with the fury of gods betrayed.
Every breath burned cold fire in her lungs. Every step drove her further from the fate they'd tried to bind her with — and closer to the truth she was determined to own.
Behind her, the divine hunter's footsteps echoed—silent but certain, a shadow carved from the stars themselves. His eyes never left her, sharp as the blade he carried, hungry for justice, or vengeance.
She didn't look back.
Not once.
Her fingers curled around the mark on her wrist — a burning sigil pulsing with stolen power.
I am not your destiny, she whispered to the night. I am my own.
The world was shifting beneath her feet. The gods were dying. And with every death, the lies they'd built began to crumble.
Ahead, the horizon stretched wide and dark, but for the first time, it was hers to face.
Because the thread she cut wasn't just hers.
It was the thread that unraveled everything.
Althea's feet barely touched the cracked earth as she fled the ruins behind her. Every shadow seemed alive with whispered warnings—threads unraveling in the wake of her defiance. The air tasted of smoke and something far older—something broken.
The mark on her wrist throbbed, a steady pulse syncing with her heartbeat. It was a reminder: she was no longer bound by their laws. She was untethered, dangerous. A threat to the gods themselves.
Behind her, the hunter's presence lingered like a storm. Cold. Unyielding. The quiet steps of inevitability.
She swallowed the panic clawing at her throat. There was no turning back.
Ahead, the world waited—fractured, uncertain, hers to challenge.
Because fate was no longer a chain. It was a blade in her hands.
And she was ready to wield it.
Althea's breath hitched as she plunged into the shadowed forest beyond the ruins. Twisted branches clawed at her skin, but she didn't slow. The pulse beneath her wrist flared hotter — the Mark of Chaos awakening with every step.
Behind her, the divine hunter's footsteps shattered the silence like thunder, relentless and precise. He moved with the certainty of the inevitable, a predator born from the stars themselves.
Her heart screamed, but her voice was steady when she whispered, "I'm not your pawn. Not your fate."
A sudden crack split the air.
She stumbled — caught in a net of shimmering threads, golden strands weaving a cage forged by the gods themselves. The hunter's silhouette emerged, eyes blazing.
"You cannot run from what you are," he said, voice low and deadly.
Althea met his gaze, her own burning with defiance.
"Watch me."
With a surge, the mark on her wrist exploded with light. Threads around her snapped — one by one — falling like dying stars.
The cage shattered.
The hunter faltered.
But in that moment of weakness, a chilling truth whispered through her mind — a prophecy darker than death itself.
"She will kill the King of Gods... and become one herself."
The forest went silent.
Althea's pulse thundered in her ears as the shimmering threads dissolved around her, broken by the surge of raw power coursing from the mark. The cage shattered like glass, leaving behind only echoes of a fate no longer binding her.
The hunter's eyes narrowed, a storm barely restrained. "You think this changes anything?" His voice cut sharp as a blade. "You're still tethered to a destiny you can't escape."
She met his gaze without flinching. "No," she said firmly. "I am the destiny."
Before he could react, Althea vanished into the thick forest, shadows swallowing her silhouette. Leaves whispered secrets underfoot, and the weight of a prophecy settled cold and heavy in her mind—She will kill the King of Gods and become one herself.
The hunter hesitated, a flicker of something unreadable crossing his eyes.
The chase had begun, but the rules had changed.
Every step she took unraveled the threads of the world, and the gods trembled in fear.
Because now, fate belonged to her.
Althea's breath was ragged, the wild rhythm of her heartbeat pounding louder than the crashing thunder above. The forest closed in around her, a tangle of shadows and silence broken only by the sharp snap of branches beneath her feet. Every muscle screamed for rest, but she pushed harder, driven by a force deeper than fear — a fierce hunger to claim a life not handed to her but forged by her own will.
The mark on her wrist throbbed violently, a living pulse that seemed to beat in sync with the breaking world around her. It burned hotter with every step, lighting the path ahead with a soft, unearthly glow. This was no longer just a scar. It was the symbol of rebellion — the raw power she had stolen from gods themselves.
She wasn't just a girl who cut her thread. She was a living fracture in the fabric of fate.
Behind her, the divine hunter moved like a shadow drawn sharp and precise. He was the hunter born from the heavens' wrath — relentless, cold, an executioner tasked with repairing the broken order. His eyes glinted like shattered stars in the moonlight, unwavering in their pursuit.
"You can't hide from what you've done," his voice called out, low and unyielding, slicing through the night. "Every thread you break pulls the world closer to ruin."
Althea's lips curled into a fierce smile, breath coming fast but steady. "I'm not hiding," she said. "I'm rewriting."
The hunter's footsteps thundered closer, the distance between them shrinking with each heartbeat. But something had changed in the air — a subtle shift that twisted the rules of their deadly game.
With a sudden burst, Althea plunged deeper into the forest's depths, where the trees grew thick and ancient. Her fingers clenched the blade at her side — a relic forged from fallen stars, humming with the silent power of shattered destinies. She was no longer a powerless mortal; she was the anomaly, the impossible thread that threatened to unravel gods.
The mark flared again, bright as lightning, and with it came a surge of visions — flickers of lives she could have lived, of roads not taken and choices undone. Faces she might have loved, battles she might have lost, deaths narrowly escaped.
A cruel prophecy echoed in her mind, darker than any nightmare:
She will kill the King of Gods... and become one herself.
The words burned like acid, yet they filled her with a fierce, unshakable certainty. The gods feared her not because she was weak, but because she was the future — the one who could shatter their reign and rewrite the heavens.
Suddenly, the hunter broke through the underbrush, tall and commanding, his presence filling the clearing like a storm about to break. The silver blade at his hip caught the moonlight, sharp and waiting.
"You are a threat to the divine order," he said, voice steady, eyes locked onto hers. "Surrender now. Return the thread. Submit."
Althea's eyes narrowed, the fire within her blazing brighter. "I won't surrender to fate. I will become my own god."
With that, she lunged forward, the mark on her wrist igniting with blinding light. The threads of fate around them shimmered and snapped, tearing through the air like lightning cutting the sky.
The hunter staggered as the power struck him — a force not of this world, wild and untamed.
For the first time, a flicker of doubt crossed his eyes.
Althea didn't wait to see his next move. She turned and vanished into the shadows, leaving behind the shattered remnants of the Thread Hall and a world forever changed.
But as she fled, the whisper of the prophecy haunted her steps — a promise and a warning.
The girl who stole fate will kill the King of Gods… and take his throne.
Far above, in the silent halls of the divine, a throne trembled.
Because when a thread is cut, a god dies.
And when a god dies, everything changes.
The hunt had begun — but the war for fate had just erupted.